Image Compression tools via command line

Question

I'm searching best tool to compress images (png and jpeg) via command line.
After googling I found trimage which is good as it compresses both png and jepeg, but compression ratio is very poor in this case.

I came across jpeg-optimizer.com online tool which does the job way better than trimage. Can any one help to find the right tool for this.

https://images.guide/ lists many tools and dives into several image formats. — str, Jul 29 '19 at 19:05
`zopflipng --iterations=500 --filters=01234mepb input.png output.png` took like an hour on a 170 KB image and resulted in a 112 KB file. — Boris Verkhovskiy, Oct 21 '21 at 00:07

score 49 · Answer 1 · answered Oct 11 '13 at 21:20

49

I'm using the following tools to perform lossless image compression:

For each of the programs, I've created two shortcuts:

One that does the actual compression, and shows the file size of both files
One that replaces the original file with the compressed one (If I'm satisfied, I'll do arrow-up, prefix my previous command with a "m", and press enter).

I've put this in my .bashrc:

# Image optimization tools
png() {
    pngcrush -brute "$1"{,.} && du -b "$1"{,.}
}
gif() {
    gifsicle -O "$1" -o "$1." && du -b "$1"{,.}
}
jpeg() {
    jpegtran "$1" > "$1." && du -b "$1"{,.}
}
# Just for easy access in history
mpng() {
    mv "$1"{.,}
}
mgif() {
    newsize=$(wc -c <"$1.")
    oldsize=$(wc -c <"$1")
    if [ $oldsize -gt $newsize ] ; then
        mv "$1"{.,}
    else
        rm "$1."
    fi  
}
mjpeg() {
    mv "$1"{.,}
}

Note: pngcrush -brute is very verbose. Redirect the output to /dev/null if you're not interested in the progress.

answered Oct 11 '13 at 21:20

Rob W

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gifsicle only started optimising with the `-O3` flag in a new release (not available on `apt` currently) - see [release 1.82.1](https://github.com/pornel/giflossy/releases) (replace your `/usr/bin/gifsicle` binary the appropriate one). My notes on gif optimisation with it are [here](https://github.com/lmmx/devnotes/wiki/Gif-terminal-manipulation) – Louis Maddox Jul 29 '15 at 17:31
1

Your `jpegtran` command seems to do nothing at all, it results in a file of the exact same size. Why do you have no options specified? – pretzlstyle Feb 28 '17 at 06:24
@jphollowed `jpegtran` optimizes by default. If the file does not change, then jpegtran cannot reduce the size in a lossless way. – Rob W Feb 28 '17 at 07:29
I like pngcrush because of lossless compression. I just copy the png files to a temp diretory. Then I run a batch file in Windows that processes all the PNG in the current directory. `for /R %cd% %%f in (*.png) do ( pngcrush -reduce -brute -ow "%%~nf.png" "temp%%~nf.png" )` Then I run a folder comparison program to review the two folders and visually files are identical but I copy over the smaller optimized files to the source directory. – Sun Sep 26 '17 at 22:09

Kornel · Answer 2 · 2023-01-29T14:17:45.587

38

Lossy PNG: pngquant and rdopng
Lossless PNG: oxipng, AdvPNG (good and fast) or ZopfliPNG (slow, but best)
Lossless JPG: mozjpeg's jpegtran or deprecated jpegrescan
Lossy JPG: mozjpeg's cjpeg (try online) or imgmin
If you're running macOS: ImageOptim CLI

edited Jan 29 '23 at 14:17

answered Oct 24 '13 at 18:08

Kornel

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For ease of use `advpng -4` will use the zopfli compression algorithm. – ocaptchamycaptcha May 09 '19 at 23:35

score 17 · Answer 3 · edited Jul 21 '14 at 11:26

17

If you are on Linux, try mogrify tool from the imagemagick suite

It is quite handy on command line.

Ex :

mogrify -resize 50% rose.jpg

mogrify -format jpg *.png

edited Jul 21 '14 at 11:26

old-ufo

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answered Jul 21 '14 at 11:19

Udantha

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Or try the faster fork: http://www.graphicsmagick.org/ – Anthony Hatzopoulos Jul 23 '15 at 17:43

Image Compression tools via command line

3 Answers3

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